Ross halts execution

Published 7:00 pm, Sunday, January 30, 2005

A death warrant allowing Michael Ross' execution was to expire late Monday. Lawyers say it could be months before legal hurdles are cleared and the execution is allowed to go forward.

"I long for the day when we can say that we've forgotten about Michael Ross, and I want everyone to remember that we should never forget his victims," Chief State's Attorney
Christopher Morano
said. "It is my hope that sometime in the not-so-distant future we will finally be able to give their families a sense of justice."

Ross would have been the first person to be executed in New England in 45 years. His death by lethal injection was scheduled for last Wednesday and postponed three times as new court challenges emerged. It had been rescheduled for 9 p.m. Monday before the state Supreme Court granted motions from Ross' attorney and prosecutors for another stay of execution.

Under state law, the execution cannot be scheduled for at least a month after a new warrant is issued.

Ross, a 45-year-old
Cornell University
graduate, confessed to eight murders in eastern Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s. He is on death row for the killings of four young women and girls.

Last year, he decided to forgo further appeals of his death sentence and hired attorney T.R.
Paulding
Jr. to expedite his execution, saying he wanted to end the pain for the families of his victims.

Ross was about an hour from being put to death Saturday morning when Paulding announced he requested a postponement of the execution. A few hours earlier, U.S. District
Judge Robert Chatigny
accused Paulding of not adequately investigating new evidence that Ross might not be mentally competent to decide to die.

On Monday, Paulding said he was persuaded of the need to explore a phenomenon known as "death row syndrome." Public defenders argued that years of harsh conditions on death row coerced Ross to drop his appeals.

"Michael Ross' decision to forgo any additional appeals remains unchanged, but he has pledged his cooperation," Paulding said. "He recognizes that serious questions have been raised regarding previous expert findings and has decided to allow a more thorough evaluation of his competence."

In his motion, Paulding said the state psychiatrist, Dr.
Michael Norko
, who had previously declared competent, now believes he may have come to a different conclusion had he had access to two letters cited by the state's public defenders in their appeals.

In a 1998 letter to a journalist about an attempt that year to accept a death sentence, Ross wrote: "I did then (and I do truly now) care for the welfare of the families of my victims. But the truth is I was driven more by a desire to end my own pain than out of a noble cause. However, I knew that I couldn't say that publicly, so I denied my own desire to leave this world and played on the noble cause of protecting the families of my victims."

In June 2003, Ross wrote to supporters: "I honestly don't think that I can do much more of this. I now understand why 12 percent of the men executed in this country were men who gave up their appeals and 'volunteered' for execution. If I can ever get past the mandatory state appeal, I will do it myself."

Based on Norko's original testimony in December, Superior Court
Judge Patrick Clifford
had ruled Ross competent. The state Supreme Court agreed, turning down attempts by the public defenders and Ross' own father to intervene.

But Chatigny last week ruled Ross' living conditions were a legitimate concern. He issued a stay and ordered a competency hearing.

That stay was subsequently lifted by the U.S. Supreme Court, and Ross' execution appeared on track until Paulding halted the proceedings early Saturday.

Hours before, Chatigny called and warned Paulding he was jeopardizing his law license by not taking evidence of Ross' incompetence more seriously.

Morano said Monday he found Chatigny's telephone call "troubling" and would address it in court.

But it was not clear Monday which court would hear the next round of legal battles.

"I think there should be new psychiatrists and a new judge, entirely new players," said
Antonio Ponvert III
, and attorney for Ross' father, Dan Ross. "Everybody has been tainted by this process."

Gov.
M. Jodi Rell
said she believes all the delays show that the legal process works to protect all interests, but said sympathizes with families of Ross' victims.

"When the process of the competency hearing is complete, assuming he is found competent and there are no further legal impediments, the state should move forward with his execution," she said.